Before Your Love
by alias4eva07
Summary: Sydney reminisces on the past five years of her life...S/V memories...Post-The Telling, Based on the song "Before Your Love" by Kelly Clarkson


Title: Before Your Love  
  
Author: Nicole (sv4ever07)  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing, not the storylines (if I did we wouldn't be where we are right now), the characters, and I don't own the song "Before Your Love" - that's by Kelly Clarkson  
  
Summary: While listening to the radio one day, a song takes Sydney back to the last 5 years of her life. Post - The Telling (Vaughn is married - no matter how much I refuse to believe it).  
  
Distribution: If you want it take it, just let me know either by PM, or you can IM me: aliasrox07, or e-mail me: alias_4eva_07@hotmail.com  
  
Author's Note: Due to a recent emergency in the family, I've been rather depressed the last few days and this idea wouldn't stop nagging me so i had to get it down so it would stop floating through my head. If it's angsty or depressing, I'm sorry that's just the mood I'm in. Please read and review and this is only a one-parter.  
  
Thanks to Kat (katiqua1982) for reading this for me and betaing it!!   
  
* - Denotes flashbacks or memories  
  
Sydney Bristow lay sprawled out on the floor of her new apartment, music thumping loudly as she contemplated her life-new and old.  
  
She had been back for almost three months, and this was her favorite thing to do after the long, torturous days of meetings and appointments and finding ways to avoid Vaughn.  
  
The music switched from the comforting, smashing sound of Good Charlotte to the angsty depressing voice of Kelly Clarkson.  
  
The song was a blast from the past; it sent her to relive the past 5 years of her life.  
  
I wonder how I ever make it through a day  
  
How did I settle for the world in shades of grey  
  
She wondered how she ever could have thought she was in love with Danny and Noah.  
  
The love she had felt for them was nowhere near the passionate, soul-bearing love she had felt for Vaughn, that she still felt for him.  
  
She hadn't known what real love was.  
  
When you go in circles all the scenery looks the same  
  
And you don't know how  
  
She thought back to when she was working at SD-6, both before and after she had learned the truth about the organization.  
  
It had been the same routine everytime she was assigned a new mission: Get the details of the mission, come home, lie to friends, leave again, come home after the trip, and lie to her friends again.  
  
Over and over, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, the routine was always the same. She became so tired of that life. It became so exhausting that she wished she could just leave SD-6, the CIA and run away someplace, someplace safe without lies, where she wouldn't be missed.  
  
And I looked into your eyes  
  
Where the road stretched out in front of me  
  
And I realized  
  
*Their eyes caught each other's and they stood there for a moment, just staring.  
  
Slowly they began walking towards each other, then their slow pace turns into a frantic one.  
  
And soon, very soon arms were reaching, hands entwining in the other's hair and exploring places never touched before.  
  
They didn't notice nor care that they were standing amid the destruction of SD-6.*  
  
That had been the best night of her life, a momentous one too.  
  
But who knew things would spiral downward like they did?  
  
She would never forget that night, or the kiss that changed everything.  
  
I'd never live  
  
Before your love  
  
Noah and Danny had been warm-ups per say when it came to love.  
  
They had gotten her ready to be able to learn what true love was and to be able to commit to Vaughn the way she had.  
  
I'd never felt  
  
Before your touch  
  
She still remembered that first night, that first glorious night.  
  
She had invited him over to have dinner, but that's not exactly what happened.  
  
*She had went over to have him taste the sauce. He tasted it and they smiled at eachother.  
  
She went back to the stove and put the cover back on the pot. She bent over to check on the bread in the oven and he spun her around into his arms.  
  
They were kissing, but she knew it had to stop for now. They broke apart. "You're so beautiful," he murmured.  
  
"Dinner's ready," she had said.  
  
A smile formed on his lips. "You do have an oven you know, we can re-heat."  
  
And anyone could guess what happened after that.*  
  
She smiled bitterly, and to think they thought they had it all - that was a lie, they had nothing.  
  
And I'd never needed anyone  
  
To make me feel alive  
  
She had been surgically attached to Vaughn after that night. Although they had to hide their romance behind coy smiles and notes at work, when they weren't at work it was a completely different story...  
  
Where you found one, you would most certainly find the other.  
  
Being away from each other for hours was unbearable. Let alone if Sydney had a mission without him - let's just say she would be a bit preoccupied for the rest of the night.  
  
But then again  
  
I wasn't really livin'  
  
I'd never lived...  
  
Before your love  
  
Once again her thoughts began to drift to Danny.  
  
Once upon a time she thought she had been so in love with him - that he had been the love of her life.  
  
But years later, she realizes that honor goes to Vaughn and now she had lost him too, just like Danny and Noah.  
  
I wanted more than just an ordinary life  
  
All of my dreams, seemed like castles in the sky  
  
She thought back to how much her spy life, her double life had screwed up her living.  
  
*"I did it," Vaughn said with a smile  
  
"Did what?" Sydney asked.  
  
"Booked the hotel," he answered matter-of-factly.  
  
"You didn't?" she questioned.  
  
He nodded. "3 nights starting tonight in Santa Barbara," he told her.  
  
She smiled, it seems that it's infectious. "It was probably the single best phone call I've ever made."*  
  
It would have been her first vacation - her first taste of a normal life - a normal life with Vaughn.  
  
All she had wanted was to put Arvin Sloane away, quit the CIA, and start her normal life with Vaughn. Was that too much to ask?  
  
Maybe it was.  
  
I stand before you and my heart is in your hands  
  
And I don't know how  
  
I'd survive without your kiss  
  
*Sydney looked up at him through pitiful eyes, flinging herself into his arms.  
  
"They doubled Francie," she mumbled.  
  
"I know," he replied.  
  
"What happened to Will? To Francie? Are they dead?" she asked.  
  
"Will's okay," Vaughn told her.  
  
"What? How?" she questioned, completely confused, when she'd last seen him, he was dead, or so she thought, in the bathtub, from a stabwound to the stomach.  
  
"You..." he said, "Sit down."  
  
She sat down, afraid that if she didn't she might fall down or pass out. Then she saw Vaughn's pained expression.  
  
"Vaughn?" she asked, hearing the tears already in her voice.  
  
"We thought you were dead," he replied and if you looked carefully enough, you could see the tears lightly glistening in his eyes, "They asked me to come back to explain."  
  
The tears lightly started falling down her cheeks now.  
  
"Come back from what?" she questioned, "What are you talking about?"  
  
And then she saw it, the simple gold wedding band on his left ring finger and everything was becoming clear. She could feel the hysteria rising in her, she was becoming hysterical.  
  
"Vaughn?" she asked quietly, "Why are you wearing that ring?"  
  
The panic and pained look that came across his face spoke the words he didn't want to say.  
  
"Syd...since that night," he said his voice choking with tears, "You were missing...you've been missing for almost two years."*  
  
That had been the worst night of her life, she could still remember the distinct expressions on his face that night - the pained expressions, everything.  
  
Cuz you've given me  
  
A reason to exist  
  
*"When I was younger I never had anyone to dissappoint," Sydney told him softly, "That's different now."*  
  
She still remembered that day in the park - when she had admitted to Vaughn that she knew that Dixon had changed his drug test results.  
  
The look of disappointment on his face and evident in his eyes had shattered her heart into a million pieces.  
  
I'd never lived  
  
Before your love  
  
I'd never felt  
  
Before your touch  
  
She still remembers the argument that they had had that day he was going to give her the key to his apartment.  
  
He had turned Dixon in for taking drugs and being unstable - he had thought Dixon was too grief-stricken to do his job, had he been right.  
  
I'd never needed anyone   
  
To make me feel alive  
  
But then again  
  
I wasn't really livin'  
  
The nights they had spent together were amazing, phenomenal, awesome.  
  
She loved when they would just lay in her bed, her back against his chest and him pulling her to him with his hands around her slim waist.  
  
That's when she began depending on him - depending on his kisses, on his love, on his presence.  
  
And that was her first wrong turn - rule #1 in the Sydney Bristow rulebook: Never become dependent on someone else. Dependance on someone else leads to death and hearache.  
  
It was the latter for her in this case.  
  
I'd never lived...  
  
I'd never lived...  
  
Before your love  
  
I'd never lived  
  
Before your love  
  
She never became dependent of a man, but when she did, she knew it was true love.  
  
She couldn't be dependent on Danny because he didn't know the truth about her up until his death.  
  
She could have never been dependent on Noah - he was too impulsive.  
  
Vaughn on the other hand, Vaughn was truly one of a kind - she had truly grown dependent on him and thus had her heart and soul shattered into a million pieces.  
  
And I don't know why  
  
Why the sun decides to shine  
  
Vaughn had been the light of her life, her reason for fighting, her reason for surviving, her reason for living.  
  
*"I have my life back again," Sydney told him.*  
  
She still remembered when she told him that, the morning after their first night together.  
  
Waking up next to him that morning with the sun streaming in the window, she had seen a glimpse of her future.  
  
A future that was no longer hers.  
  
But you've breathed your love into me just in time  
  
Vaughn had come into her life at a time that she had thought she would never love again.  
  
He had offered her partnership, friendship, and then love.  
  
*"I'm always your ally - remember that," Vaughn explained.*  
  
Tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered this memory. They had just met not too long before and he was already giving her his unconditional friendship.  
  
She had been wrong - she had fallen in love again, and once again her heart had been broken.  
  
I'd never lived  
  
Before your love  
  
I'd never felt  
  
Before your touch  
  
*"What's wrong?" Sydney asked him.  
  
"I think you know what's wrong," he replied.  
  
"I need you to tell me," she told him.  
  
"Tell you what?" he asked, "That when you're on missions I can't sleep at night, when we're in debrief I have to remember what the hell we're supposed to be reviewing when all I want to do is kiss you."  
  
"Sometimes it is hard to remember what we're supposed to be talking about," Sydney had agreed.*  
  
I'd never needed anyone  
  
To make me fell alive  
  
But then again  
  
I wasn't really livin'  
  
She remembered how jealous she had been when Alice had shown up at the hospital after Vaughn had gotten sick.  
  
*"Hi I'm Michael's girlfriend," she said as she introduced herself to Sydney.*  
  
She had envied Alice for being able to have the normal life with Vaughn that she so desperately wanted.  
  
I'd never lived  
  
I'd never lived   
  
Before...  
  
Your...  
  
Love!  
  
And now that's why she layed sprawled out on the floor recounting her past and the future she could of had, if only...  
  
THE END  
  
Please read and review!! 


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